Mobile phones have become iconic devices with the proliferation of iphones, Android phones and Blackberries.
They have gathered a critical mass now and you should get a mobile web site designed as soon as possible. The competition for attention is still manageable now. It will become worse as the days pass by.
Here are 15 tips for a great mobile website:
- The phones have much smaller screen space and therefore you have to really cut down on the amount of information you should include on your web pages.
- The phones work on much slower bandwidth even if they are on 3G. Again you should reduce the size of files, images and other elements to as small as possible.
- Since the capacity of the phones vary widely, use progressive enhancement. This way you will have your site working fine off the most limited browsers and offer a great site with the more capable ones.
- Attention span on a mobile site is really limited. Don’t try to tell everything and confuse the reader. You have to include your most salient points – the big hitters.
- You might try this format – powerful headline, a paragraph of introduction text and a few bullet points followed by a call to action.
- New page loads are taxing on the bandwidth, too much information on a single page is daunting. You have to strike a fine balance.
- Advertise on the mobile networks. The clicks are still affordable.
- Don’t forget to send the clicks to a mobile version of the landing page. Don’t drop the ball by sending the clicks to a desktop landing page which won’t show up clearly on the small screens.
- Some people won’t be happy with the limited information on the mobile sites. Include a link to your main site so that they can see the whole story.
- Mobile commerce is picking up very fast. Be ready to take advantage.
- Make your forms as small as possible. They can’t fill up large forms with the mobile keyboard.
- Including a touch-to-call or click-to-call button can be a terrific USP. They are working off a mobile phone after all and calling someone is the most natural thing to do.
- Build a SMS list. SMS marketing, like email marketing, is a potential winner. However you need to use it responsibly or else, you will go down the email spammer route.
- You must include a mobile sitemap and submit it to the search engines. How can we forget the search engines? They can send large number of people to your sites after all.
- Setup auto-sensing and auto-redirection for mobile browsers on the main URL. Don’t split your branding efforts by advertising 2 different URLs.
You can rest assured of massive success for your mobile websites and unlock a vast new market by following these tips. Please share your success report in the comments section below.
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